Squaw Valley officials currently in a ‘pencils down mode’

Pictured is an overview of the proposed village expansion plan for Squaw Valley in a 3D model, with the lit area representing the exisiting village. A larger model, with new features, will be installed soon, officials said. Normal model viewing hours are from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, at Base Camp, located in the village near Sierra Sotheby's International Reality.

TRUCKEE, Calif. — There won’t be any major updates in the near future to Squaw Valley’s proposed 101.5-acre capital improvement plan, an official said.

“We are kind of in a pencils down mode right now,” said Chevis Hosea, vice president of development for Squaw Valley, at Tuesday’s Good Morning Truckee meeting. “You’ll see a few little tweaks to our plan, but we are trying to hold the project as static as possible while the county and their consultants study the project.”

Currently, the proposal outlines the addition of 1,093 lodging units, 2,184 bedrooms, 47,000 square feet in commercial space and new amenities at the west end of Squaw Valley.

“It’s important to note that this is an infill development; it’s a restoration and redevelopment of existing parking lots,” Hosea said. “… This is the redevelopment of those parking lots into (a) beautiful, new world-class internationally competitive resort.”

Truckee resident Greg Zirbel was among the roughly 100 residents and officials who attended Good Morning Truckee on Tuesday at the airport. He said he supports the proposed development.

“We are a world-class destination, and this will showcase it,” he said.

The project has drawn criticism, however.

“The … project as currently proposed would be too dense, too large and out of scale with the acreage available,” said Ed Heneveld, a member of the Friends of Squaw Valley steering committee and a 35-year Olympic Valley resident, in a previous report. “… The end result would be an urbanized city, not a rural alpine village.”

A draft Environmental Impact Report is being prepared and is expected to be published this winter, Hosea said. A final EIR is expected to be published in summer 2014, with Placer County hearings expected in fall 2014.

Construction of the proposed project, which consists of four phases, could begin in summer 2015, Hosea said, taking approximately 12 to 15 years to complete.